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The proposed Competition Ordinance 2008 may just be a ‘paper-based’ law or a toothless tiger as the authorities concerned have failed to identify the fields of its application, according to a commerce ministry report.
   The interim government initiated the process of promulgating the competition ordinance to protect the interest of consumers and ensure that entrepreneurs have an opportunity to compete in the market economy.
   ‘Differences of opinion prevail among the members of the committee responsible for finalisation of the proposed Competition Ordinance,’ said a senior official of the finance ministry.
   Another official said that some members have opined that a commission may start its operation with jurisdiction over a limited number of products and sectors and gradually enlarge its working area.
   ‘The competition law can be fully implemented after establishment of the proposed Bangladesh Competition Commission,’ said the official.
   The committee on finalization of the Competition Ordinance recently completed its report and sent it to the commerce adviser and the commerce secretary.
   The committee has already received 11 recommendations from various organizations. The country’s main mobile phone operators — Garmeenphone and Aktel — and the Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund have offered a number of important recommendations on the proposed Competition Ordinance 2008.
   Commerce ministry sources said that after the draft of the ordinance was placed on the ministry’s web site, the BICF organized a seminar on it at a local hotel.
   But the ministry has refuted the claim by representatives of the BICF, a wing of the International Finance Corporation which is funded by the European Commission and the UK’s Department for International Development, of providing technological and financial support in preparing the new ordinance.
   The commerce ministry’s report said that representatives of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry have opposed the idea of the ordinance covering the entire field for application in such a short time.
   The MCCI has suggested selection of a limited number of sectors and commodities for the proposed Bangladesh Competition Commission at the beginning, and gradual expansion of the area it will cover.
   The committee, however, expressed the apprehension that if the fields are not identified before the promulgation of the ordinance, the proposed commission will be unable to start its operation.
   Besides, the government’s representatives have also opposed the idea of bringing government organizations like the utility services under the purview of the proposed ordinance.
   The private sector’s representatives expressed resentment over the idea of excluding the government organizations from the purview of the ordinance.
   Meanwhile, the committee on finalization of the ordinance has submitted a couple of recommendations to the commerce adviser for speedy formulation of the proposed Competition Ordinance 2008.
   The recommendations include establishment of the Bangladesh Competition Commission one year before the enactment of the law for gathering sufficient knowledge of the sectors and commodities.
   The main objective of the proposed Bangladesh Competition Commission will be to promote fair competition and protect the interest of consumers.
   It will be authorized to punish an offender with a maximum sentence of one year’s imprisonment or Tk 10 lakh in fine in case of failure to comply with any provisions of the ordinance.
   Commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed told New Age on Tuesday that the Competition Ordinance would be implemented within the tenure of the present interim government.
   ‘We have already completed the English version of proposed Competition Ordinance 2008 and the commerce ministry will now seek financial assistance from the donors for completing the Bengali version,’ he added.

Pakistan and Iran on Friday said they were willing to undertake bilaterally a stalled multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline even if India does not join the project.
   The pipeline, to carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and India, was first mooted in 1994 but has been delayed by repeated disputes over prices and transit fees.
   The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Iran met in Islamabad and announced that the 7.5 billion dollar pipeline could start without India’s involvement.
   ‘Iran is willing to undertake the project bilaterally,’ Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters after talks with Manouchehr Mottaki.
   Mottaki endorsed the plan, saying that ‘India may join
   the project whenever it is ready for this.’
   Talks on the project to supply gas to India and to Pakistan through the 2,600-kilometre (1,600-mile) pipeline have been hobbled by tensions between the two rival nuclear powers.
   India, which imports more than 70 per centof its energy needs, has been seeking new supplies of oil and gas while ramping up domestic production to sustain its booming economy.
   New Delhi has also been under pressure from the United States not to do business with Iran, viewed in Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism that is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
   Qureshi previously guaranteed Pakistan would ‘provide fool-proof security’ for the pipeline, which is expected to pass through Pakistan’s volatile Baluchistan region.

The country’s export activities will enter into a new era end of this year as the National Board of Revenue expects to complete the installation of its container scanners at the Chittagong seaport within next two months.
   ‘Yes, we expect to complete the installation of the four container scanners by end of this year,’ the NBR chairman, Muhammad Abdul Mazid, told the news agency over telephone on Thursday night. He said they had already given the work order to supplier company, SGS Bangladesh.
   The recently started automation system at the Chittagong port will witness a big advancement with the installation of the NBR container scanners.
   The EU countries made it mandatory to install container scanners at the ports by 2009 while the USA deadline is 2010 for importing any consignment from another country. The government financed the much-talked installation of container scanners at Chittagong seaport after the Asian Development Bank refused to provide funds on the ground of a re-tendering plan by the government.
   The ADB was supposed to fund the scheme, but later changed its mind following a government move to call fresh tender by scrapping the deal with a previous bid-winner for the job.
   The scheme, which was initiated in 2003 by the BNP-led alliance government, envisages installation of scanner machines, computerisation of operational system and construction of a flyover to ease traffic congestion in the port area.
   As the lowest bidder, pre-shipment inspection company M/s Cotecna Inspection SA had won the contract of the installation job. But the government cancelled the previous tender due to the cancellation of its agreement with Cotecna on charges of irregularities.
   On March 19 this year, the government cancelled the agreement with Cotecna as PSI agent after the NBR found out that the company was involved with irregularities that hindered revenue collection.
   The NBR said the certificate of Cotecna was cancelled for violation of the Pre-Shipment Inspection Rules 2002.
   After scrapping the previous tender, the NBR wanted to re-tender the installation of four container-scanners and thus sought permission from the ADB. But the ADB refused to do so.
   Later, the NBR prepared a summary of the project and sent it to the higher authorities, suggesting that the project could be implemented from domestic resources. Another PSI company, SGS Bangladesh won the re-tender of the container scanner installation as the lowest bidder.

Germans are moving their nest eggs to the safety of state-owned banks, figures suggested Friday, despite chancellor Angela Merkel’s pledge this week to guarantee all savings and current accounts.
   In the past two weeks alone, Germans have put more than one billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) into accounts at the country’s massive network of Sparkasse savings banks, according to a survey by the Bild daily.
   ‘A while ago banks could not be international enough and the only ones that were ‘modern’ were those that were active on international markets,’ said Michaela Roth, spokeswoman for the German Sparkasse federation DSGV.
   ‘But now there is quite clearly a change in awareness taking place and the image of this very conservative, very solid business model is improving,’ Roth told AFP.
   Merkel issued the blanket deposit guarantee on Sunday in an effort to stave off panic withdrawals after Berlin cobbled together a 50-billion-euro rescue of the country’s fourth biggest bank, Hypo Real Estate.
   But although there have been no massive queues outside German banks, it is clear that the country’s citizens are far from reassured: a survey published on Thursday said that just 55 per cent of Germans feel their savings are safe.
   So despite Merkel’s assurances, which are not underpinned by legislation, Germans are taking no chances and are moving their money en masse to banks where they feel more confident that it won’t disappear into thin air.

Singapore has become the first Asian economy to fall into recession, analysts said Friday, after the government revised downward its full-year growth estimate and eased monetary policy for the first time in years.
   The ministry of trade and industry lowered the city-state’s full-year growth forecast to around three per cent, citing a slowdown in the global economy and key domestic sectors.
   The move came as the ministry released preliminary data showing that real GDP declined by 6.3 per cent in the third quarter after contracting 5.7 per cent in the previous quarter, the ministry said. While it did not describe the economy as being in recession, a technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in economic output.
   ‘Singapore will be the first Asia economy to fall into a technical recession,’ DBS Group Research said in an assessment of the data.
   In a move to confront the downturn, the Monetary Authority of Singapore — its de facto central bank — said it was easing monetary policy for the first time in more than four years.
   ‘The Singapore economy has weakened over the course of 2008, alongside an escalation in the turmoil in financial markets and a more severe deceleration in global economic activity,’ MAS said.
   These developments meant new uncertainties for the Singapore economy, while slower Asian growth would restrain activity in a range of service industries such as transportation and tourism, it said.
   ‘The risks to external demand conditions continue to be on the downside, and a more severe global downturn cannot be discounted,’ the bank said.
   The MAS conducts monetary policy through the local currency rather than by setting interest rates.
   The Singapore dollar is traded against a basket of currencies of its major trading partners within an undisclosed band known as the nominal effective exchange rate.
   In its semi-annual statement, MAS said it had maintained the policy of a modest and gradual appreciation of the NEER policy band since April 2004 but is shifting to zero per cent appreciation.
   Singapore is Southeast Asia’s wealthiest economy in terms of gross domestic product per capita but is heavily dependent on trade. This makes it sensitive to hiccups in developed economies, particularly key export markets the United States and Europe.
   Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise in GDP, the value of goods and services produced in the economy.
   Compared with the third quarter of last year, the ministry said Singapore’s economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in real terms, against 0.8 per cent expansion foreseen in the Dow Jones poll.

South Korea on Friday called for closer international coordination to overcome the global financial crisis, which is rocking its economy.
   Prime minister Han Seung-Soo said at a meeting of top economic policymakers that the upheaval will spawn a new order in international finance.
   ‘Coordination of international efforts is required to overcome the crisis,’ Han was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
   ‘When this financial crisis is over, a new order in international finance will likely emerge,’ he said, adding that the global crisis must be overcome by restoring confidence in governments and banks.
   Finance minister Kang Man-Soo will visit Washington from October 11-13 to attend the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting and will seek multilateral cooperation to deal with the turmoil, his ministry said.
   Central Bank of Korea governor Lee Seong-Tae told the meeting that the country’s current account is expected to return to the black in the September-December period.
   Minister of knowledge economy Lee Youn-Ho forecast that the trade account will shift back to surplus in October.
   Stocks were down almost eight per cent in late morning trade Friday, with the KOSPI index at 1,192.77 as of 12.35 (0335 GMT). It was the first time the benchmark index had fallen below 1,200 since November 2005.

The World Trade Organisation chief on Friday invited heads of development and commercial banks to a meeting in Geneva next month to discuss the impact of the economic crisis on trade finance.
   ‘A number of WTO members, in particular developing countries, have flagged the problems they are facing in arranging trade financing,’ WTO director general Pascal Lamy said in his letter.
   ‘The purpose of our next meeting will be to review how the international market for trade-financing is faring in view of the current very difficult conditions on international financial markets,’ Lamy said. The meeting will be held on November 12 at WTO headquarters in Geneva.
   Among the invitees are World Bank head Robert Zoellick, International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the presidents of the Inter-American, Asian and African development banks. They may not attend in person however but send specialists who are well-versed in trade finance matters, trade sources said.
   Representatives from Citigroup, Commerzbank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan and HSBC have also been invited because they are the most active banks in the field of trade finance, the sources added.
   Lamy also told a meeting of the WTO’s Trade Negotiating Committee that the organisation could act as a model of how to regulate anew the global financial system in the wake of the crisis that has seen Wall Street titans humbled and unprecedented levels of state intervention in the banking sector.

Global stocks went into a tailspin on Friday, with double-digit losses in Frankfurt, London and Tokyo, on widespread fears that the financial crisis was spiralling out of control, dealers said.
   World finance chiefs were preparing an emergency meeting in Washington as a wave of panic selling swept across markets. Interest rate cuts and billions of dollars' worth of cash injections by central banks failed to calm the mayhem.
   'It's very close to panic. We are drowning in a sea of red numbers,' said Barclays Wealth analyst Henk Potts.
   'Investors are concerned about the exacerbation of the credit crunch and the gloomy forecasts for economic growth.
   'The reality is that most investors have been spooked by the sheer pressure that the credit crunch is putting on the global economy.'
   Tokyo dived 11 per cent at one point, as the credit crisis claimed its first Japanese financial institution with the bankruptcy of Yamato Life Insurance, driving the Nikkei stock index down 9.6 per cent by the close.
   In Europe, investors were also reacting to this week's nationalisation of Icelandic banks Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, victims of the crisis.
   Shortly after the open, London and Frankfurt wiped out more than 10 per cent of their value and Paris more than nine percent. All three later trimmed losses to stand about 5.0 per cent down.
   The British capital's FTSE 100 index of leading shares nosedived 10.20 per cent to as low as 3,873.99 points -- the first time below 4,000 points since July 3, 2002 -- before pulling back to show a loss of 7.21 percent.
   'Today looks to be starting off as a complete bloodbath. The FTSE was obliterated on the open,' said Capital Spreads managing director Simon Denham in London.
   'The markets are going to be absolutely mad throughout the session and hundred point moves in the indices and currencies -- both up and down -- are going to be ten a penny and likely to occur on a moment's notice.'
   He also warned investors: 'Do not bet the house on a turn in the markets.'
   Frankfurt's DAX 30 shed more than 10.0 per cent and in Paris the CAC 40 dived 9.68 per cent at one stage. In mid-morning trade, Frankfurt was 7.83 per cent down and Paris erased 8.09 per cent.
   Back in Asia, Hong Kong closed down 7.2 per cent as panic swirled about the state of the global banking industry.
   The Tokyo market suffered the biggest loss in two decades, surpassing Wednesday's plunge of 9.38 per cent. The Nikkei has lost more than 24 per cent over the past week.
   The rout quickly spread to other markets. Sydney plunged 8.3 per cent, Singapore lost 7.34 per cent and Seoul slid 4.1 percent. Shanghai was down 3.79 per cent by midday.
   Indian shares plunged almost eight per cent within minutes of opening.
   'It is ghastly,' said Macquarie Equities associate director Lucinda Chan in Sydney.
   'Investors are buying up gold. It's the only safe haven out there, otherwise it's red everywhere.'
   Japanese prime minister Taro Aso warned the slump 'has reached a point where it affects the real economy.'
   The Bank of Japan pumped a total of 4.5 trillion yen ($45.5b) into money markets, the most since the financial crisis started, while the stock exchange briefly halted some trading in futures and options. Singapore eased monetary policy for the first time in more than four years.
   In New York, the Dow Jones index plunged 7.33 per cent Thursday, closing below 9,000 points for the first time since 2003. Wall Street was due to reopen at 1330 GMT.
   'What we are witnessing is mass selling on a global scale due to a combination of sheer panic, fear and complete uncertainty over the future of the world's major economies,' said Martin Slaney, Head of Derivatives at GFT.
   'Investors are effectively pricing in the possibility of a global depression.'
   In Russia regulators ordered the two main stock markets to remain closed after sharp falls in the United States and Asia, local media reported.
   Markets were hoping for even more radical action from finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven rich nations which meet in Washington later Friday, after emergency interest rates cuts by top world central banks this week failed to calm the turmoil.
   'The world is at severe risk of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression,' warned Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economist known as 'Dr. Doom' for his foresight in predicting the crisis.

Oil prices slumped towards 77 dollars per barrel on Friday, amid a worldwide equities meltdown, with traders convinced that an economic slowdown will hurt energy demand, dealers said.
   The International Energy Agency also warned that the threat of recession and the ongoing financial crisis would erode oil demand and set back investment in new oilfields.
   Brent North Sea crude for November plunged as low as 77.29 dollars in early trade -- the first time below 80 dollars in one year -- as traders responded to heavy falls on global stock markets.
   The contract later stood at 77.88 dollars a barrel, down 4.78 dollars from Thursday.
   On Friday, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, lost 5.12 dollars to 81.47 dollars a barrel, after earlier touching a low of 81.13.
   The sharp falls came despite news that OPEC will hold an emergency meeting next month on the impact of the markets crisis -- amid speculation that the crude producers' cartel could cut output to safeguard precious oil revenues.
   'The deteriorating outlook for world growth is leading to a violent correction in commodity prices,' said Deutsche Bank analyst Martin Lewis in a research note to clients.
   'Further deterioration in the global GDP (gross domestic product) outlook could act
   as a trigger for lower oil prices,' he said, adding that prices could fall to about 60 dollars per barrel.
   The price of crude oil has now slumped by 47 per cent since striking record high points above 147 dollars per barrel on July 11.
   Meanwhile, global stock markets suffered another vicious sell-off on Friday, as the ongoing financial crisis showed no signs of easing up, dealers said.
   'Crude prices continued to tumble as fear over the uncertain outlook for energy demand continues to be the dominating factor,' said Sucden analyst Nimit Khamar.
   'Markets are very much trading on fear, which has overwhelmed (the) fundamentals' of supply and demand, he added.
   The 12-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced Thursday that it would hold an emergency meeting in Vienna on November 18 to discuss the effects of the international financial crisis.
   British prime minister Gordon Brown said on Friday that a cut in output reportedly being discussed by producing nations would be 'wrong for the world economy'.
   'I'm concerned when I hear that the OPEC countries are meeting, or about to meet, to discuss cutting production, in other words making the price potentially higher than it should be,' he said.
   It would be 'wrong for the world economy ... for OPEC to cut production and therefore keep prices high,' he added.
   The cartel's next regular meeting was scheduled for December 17 in Oran, Algeria.
   At its last ordinary meeting on September 9-10, OPEC decided to cut its production of 520,000 barrels of oil per day to sustain oil prices above 100 dollars a barrel. Prices have since plunged dramatically.
   In a monthly report published on Friday, the Paris-based IEA said that falling demand 'in the face of higher prices is now being perpetuated by weakening economic prospects.'
   The IEA, energy policy adviser to major industrialised countries, cut its forecast for demand in the 30-nation OECD area this year by about 360,000 barrels per day.
   Overall world demand this year would be 86.5 million barrels per day -- a reduction of 240,000 barrels from the previous estimate, to show a rise of 0.5 per cent from last year.
   The world forecast for next year was cut by 440,000 barrels per day to 87.2 million barrels per day, showing an annual increase of 0.8 per cent.

The dollar hit a seven-month trough against the yen on Friday as equities tumbled again, prompting investors to flee to currencies seen as less exposed to the financial crisis, dealers said.
   The dollar fell to as low as 97.91 yen at one point in Asian trading, hitting the lowest point since March. It later stood at 99.18 yen in morning London trade, down from 99.50 in New York late on Thursday.
   The British pound fell to a five-year low against the dollar, falling to 1.6792 dollars shortly before 0500 GMT, its lowest level against the greenback since November 200. The pound has been suffered recently from contraction in Britain's domestic economy.
   The European single currency eased to 1.3589 dollars from 1.3590 dollars.
   In commodity markets, the price of gold bounced above 920 dollars per ounce as the precious metal was bolstered by its safe-haven status amid markets chaos, traders said.
   'Investors are evacuating to relatively safe Japan where bad-performing loans in the banking sector have been cleared up,' said Kanako Oikawa, senior strategist at Traders Securities.
   Investors were also dumping risky investments funded with the cheap yen and bringing back the money to Japan.
   Global stock markets slumped on Friday, with double-digit losses in Frankfurt, London and Tokyo, on fears that the financial crisis was spiralling out of control, despite drastic action by authorities.
   'Currency players fear that the end of global stock price declines is not in sight yet,' Shinkin Central Bank dealer Hiroshi Yoshida told Dow Jones Newswires.
   The turmoil raised the stakes ahead of a key meeting in Washington later Friday of finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven major economies. But hopes of a quick fix to the turmoil were low.
   'Even though the G7 ministers might come up with fresh cooperative measures to avoid further financial turmoil, I am not sure if such measures will actually help the market,' Oikawa at Traders Securities said.
   The worst-hit currencies were those that have benefited from investment inflows in recent years due to their higher interest rates.
   In late morning trading in London on Friday, the euro changed hands at 1.3589 dollars against 1.3590 late Thursday, at 135.04 yen (135.23), 0.8061 pounds (0.7955) and 1.5224 Swiss francs (1.5345).
   The dollar stood at 99.18 yen (99.50) and 1.1184 Swiss francs (1.1289).
   The pound was at 1.6883 dollars (1.7080).
   On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold bounced to 924.05 dollars an ounce from 883.50 dollars late on Thursday.

The Dutch government has pledged to compensate up to 100,000 euros (about $136,000) to Dutch savers who have deposits at the troubled Icelandic Internet bank Icesave.
   While making the promise on Thursday night, Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos also stressed that the government will not hesitate to take legal actions against Icesave if it is found to have been dishonest while doing business in the Netherlands, Dutchpaper De Volkskrant reported Friday.
   The Dutch central bank, who is the executor of the Dutch deposit guarantee scheme, will assist savers with the submission of their claims, the finance ministry said in a press release on its website. According to the release, a Dutch delegation is on its way to Iceland to discuss an arrangement of the reimbursements with Icelandic authorities.
   The guarantee systems of Iceland and the Netherlands provide that the Icelandic authorities should ensure compensation for the first 20,887 euros of each saver and the Dutch authorities and banks are responsible for the rest of the 100,000 euros, the ministry said in the release.

British prime minister Gordon Brown appealed to the OPEC oil-producing cartel Friday not to cut output, saying it would be 'wrong for the world economy' at a time of near-unprecedented crisis.
   Speaking a day after the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an emergency meeting to discuss oil prices which have dipped below 80 dollars a barrel, he urged its leaders to be 'statesmanlike.'
   'I'm talking to the leaders of OPEC who really are responsible for setting the oil price and telling them that they must not, as (some) of them are planning to do, cut oil production now so that the price will go up again,' he said.
   It would be 'wrong for the world economy ... for OPEC to cut production and therefore keep prices high,' he added.
   'They must act in a statesmanlike way to help the rest of the world by making sure that we have a stable reduction in the oil price.'
   His comments came after OPEC announced on Thursday that it would hold an emergency meeting in Vienna on November 18. The cartel's next regular meeting was scheduled for December 17 in Oran, Algeria.
   Members of the Arab-dominated oil-producing organisation are worried about the impact of the international financial crisis and global economic slowdown on demand for crude.
   The Paris-based International Energy Agency said Friday that the slowdown is already cutting into global demand for oil, as leading industrialised economies face being plunged 'into outright recession.'
   Libya's oil minister Shukri Ghanem said on Thursday that oil-producing nations should 'look after their interests' and called for 'a reduction in output to respond to the fall in income' resulting from lower oil prices.
   New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, plunged 4.74 dollars to 81.85 dollars after dropping 2.36 dollars to 86.59 on Thursday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
   Brent North Sea crude for November delivery fell 4.78 dollars to 77.88 dollars after settling 1.70 dollars lower at 82.66 on Thursday in London, the first time it has dipped below 80 dollars a barrel in about a year.
   Brown said ordinary consumers, who have faced soaring prices notably of food and energy over the last year, should benefit from falls in crude prices.
   'We are determined that ... that fall is also passed on to people at the petrol pumps and to people who have got gas and electricity bills,' said Brown.
   'We are determined that just as people act quickly to pass on the rise when the oil prices rises, they pass on the fall when the oil price falls.'

India’s inflation inches lower
India’s inflation rate showed a marginal decline for the second consecutive week thanks to a reduction in costs of some raw materials, official data showed Friday. Annual inflation was at 11.80 down from 11.99 per centa week earlier, according to the Wholesale Price Index, India’s most watched cost-of-living monitor. The government has forecast inflation will stay in double digits until January. Inflation, stoked by a rise in energy and food, has nearly tripled from a year ago. Price rises are a key worry for the Congress-led government, which fears a voter backlash in elections due by May 2009. Analysts believe the central bank will leave monetary policy unchanged at its next meeting on October 24 due to the current global financial turmoil.
— AFP

Libya cuts oil sales to Switzerland, pulls bank deposits
Libya will halt oil deliveries to Switzerland and withdraw its funds from Swiss banks in protest at the detention in Geneva in July of a son of leader Moamer Kadhafi, the official news agency announced. Libya ‘has decided to stop crude oil shipments to Switzerland and withdraw Libyan assets from Swiss banks, which amount to seven billion dollars,’ JANA said overnight. The Libyan news agency quoted an unidentified foreign ministry official as saying said Tripoli will ‘also put an end to all economic cooperation with Switzerland’ in protest at the ‘poor treatment of Libyan diplomats and businessmen by the canton of Geneva.’ Swiss president Pascal Couchepin said Libya’s decision will not threaten the economy. ‘The current situation on the oil markets is not tense, prices show that there is sufficient oil on the market. So there’s no danger for Switzerland,’ he told Swiss German-language television. Even if the economy is not threatened by the measures, ‘it is never okay when a country with which we are trying to maintain friendly relations takes measures against Switzerland,’ he said. Libya supplies about 2.5 million tonnes of crude to Switzerland a year, about 20 per cent of the country’s total needs.
— AFP